


The Hunted

by Mindl3ss



Category: Alien vs Predator
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-20 21:40:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10671324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mindl3ss/pseuds/Mindl3ss
Summary: He was a disgraced warrior, exiled to a dangerous prey world for his failures. She was a creature of legend, fighting desperately to fit in with a people who wouldn't understand. Both hunters, natural predators with honed skills and dangerous instincts. When they land in eachother's sights, the unexpected happens. Two unlikely allies must fight the dangers of the prey world if they hope to survive. But the dangerous creatures that roam the jungles aren't the only ones stalking the wayward warriors. And even more fearsome than the alien nightmares are the Four Hunters to whom this prey world belongs. Can the two unlikely allies fight to forces of War, Famine, Plague, and Death? Can they escape the hell of the prey world? And can they find so much more within each other than they had ever know? Or will they die here on this savage world, built by the apocalyptic rulers of the hunt?





	The Hunted

The Hunted

Chapter One: Hunters

Free fall. It was the worst feeling that any young Yuatja would know. It meant failure. It meant trial. It meant dishonor. To any hunter it was a fate worse than death. Stripped of armor, stripped of weapons and striped of rank, the lone hunter fell, dropped from his clan ship with the rest of the prey. Ki'ka'ryuarg counted his blessings as he entered the cloud cover. He was without rank to strip. He had failed to kill a Kiande Amedha during his blooding hunt. He had been injured, but survived. Glowing blood still trickled from the untreated wound in his right shoulder. He had been given no sail. The fall would likely kill him, if not he would certainly die from his days old injury. The last blessing, he had no markings. No clan symbol. If generations later, his skull was discovered, no mark would be found, no dishonor traced back to his house. 

Then the cloud cover broke and almost immediately Ki'Ka'Ryuarg smashed through the top branches of the high Forrest canopy. He rolled with the first impact, then the second slammed into his chest, shattering the branches in his path. He tumbled again then the third branch impacted the back of his head. He saw green for a moment, then out of the green, a fourth branch shattered over his brow. The green faded to black nearly instantly as Ki'Ka'Ryuarg went limp.

Hours later, days maybe, a lone dishonored warrior woke on the rainforest floor. He was naked, save for a tattered fur for a loincloth. His body was numb and his head throbbed. His vision was just a blur of foggy green. All he could smell was his own blood, all he could hear was the pounding in his head. As he began to push himself up from the mud, his stomache lurched and he turned and vomited blood and bile beside him. Once his chest stopped heaving he grimaced and whipped his brow on his arm. He noticed his vision clear a little. Just enough to see the sparkle of moving water about twenty paces ahead of him. With what seemed like all the energy he possessed, Ki'Ka'Ryuarg rolled onto his chest and began to drag himself foreword with the one arm he could move.

It felt like hours before Ki'Ka'Ryuarg felt the cool clean water cool his hand. With all the energy he had left, he dragged his damaged body to the waters edge and tumbled down into the cool shallow stream. He landed face down and drank in the clean water. With every painful swallow he felt his stamina return to him. When he at last needed air, he flipped himself over with ease, compared to the long crawl he endured to get here. As he lay gasping in the stream, the water washed the much and blood from his face and body. His vision cleared and with it his mind began to function again. Memories hit him all at once. The fall, the impact that had knocked him out, then the terrifying snarl of the Kiande Amedha looming over him. The stab of its tail into his shoulder, the ripping of its claws across his chest. He triggered his wrist blades and thrust upwards. But his naked fist met only air, and the snarling alien dissolved into the canopy above. Ki'Ka'Ryuarg released a breath he hadn't realized he had been holding. He looked at his hand as he unclenched his fist and remembered. He remembered his blood brother pulling the Kiande Amedha from him, his patriarch's words of banishment. His matriarch looking away in disappointment. He was alone down here, somehow alive, but without equipment and nowhere to return to if he did manage to survive.

Ki'Ka'Ryuarg pulled himself to his feet, slowly, testing the nature of his injuries. He still bore the acid cauterized wound in his shoulder, and his head still pounded from the blow he had taken to his brow. As he took shallow breaths his ribs made a soft popping noise from his left side. Fortunately, his legs, though thoroughly bruised were still in tact, as was his right arm. His left arm hung limp at his side as he clenched his fist, he felt the bones in his forearm crunch back into place and he grimaced. With his left arm useless he would need time to heal before the denizens of the prey world found him. Worse still, he had nothing to survive with, not even a shard of metal to hone into a knife. But he did not know fear to feel it. With a pained grunt he forced himself to move. He needed to find shelter if he was to survive. He needed to find easy prey to feed and regain his strength. He needed to find materials so craft a weapon. So he set out into the jungle, fighting his despair with only an ingrained instinct to survive. 

After what felt like days of searching, Ki'Ka'Ryuarg at last found what he had been seeking. A cave, nestled high in a rocky hill would give him the shelter he would need if he was to recover from his injuries. It was near a watering hole, which was a risk for predators to venture close, but it meant food and water were close by. Along the way he had found a sturdy branch that he had sharpened crudely with his own claws. As he scaled the rocky hillside, he felt his energy fading quickly. He needed rest. He would hunt and forage when he woke.

The cave was nearly empty, save for a few small rodents, which he quickly killed and ate raw without hesitation. It was a sizable cave, plenty big enough to suit his meager needs. With a small meal in his stomache, Ki'Ka'Ryuarg allowed himself to relax. He slept without peace, but unable to wake as his exhaustion was complete. Through his dreams, Kiande Amedha chased him through an alien jungle. Their snarls echoing through his mind.

*************************************************************

Not far from Ki'Ka'Ryuarg's cave, another hunter woke from her capture. Lyscassa was not human, but appeared so. When she was last awake, she had been set into a hillside in the desert wastes of Syria on earth. Her beam rider rifle trained on her target. Lys remembered seeing the first few missiles hit their mark then nothing. She didn't remember a fight, or being captured, just nothing. The first thing she noticed was that she was upside down, hanging low in the canopy of some sort of jungle. She looked up at her feet. She hung from the canopy by the nylon chords of a parachute. She looked over her head. The ground was more than twenty feet down. It would be rough, but she had to get moving. Lys reached for her Karambit and found it securely in its sheath at her waist. With practiced skill she drew the metal claw and cut the chords on one side of her chute. She tumbled and fell another five feet before the remaining chords caught her. Now she was right side up and just fifteen feet from the ground. She grinned. Much better odds of avoiding injury. 

Lys looked around, searching for any other humans. When she found none she relaxed for a moment and her form shifted. Her skin grew short thick red fur and her body changed shape. Her calves shortened and her feet lengthened. Her hands became paw like and short sharp claws grew from her fingertips. A long bushy red tail snaked out from above her belt. Her mouth and nose blended and elongated into a narrow muzzle, growing red and tan fur and sharp canine teeth. The rest of her face flattened and widened a little, growing the same red fur, and a pair of triangular ears emerged from the top of her head. She grinned from her foxy muzzle and cut the final chords. As Lys dropped to the ground, she caught herself harmlessly on all fours, ready to sprint. 

But she remained still. The acute senses of her natural form taking in the new surroundings. Lys reached for her rifle and held it to her shoulder, still crouched. She traced a slow circle into the thick jungle, scanning every inch with her thermal scope. There were hits everywhere, but none bigger than a house cat, so she checked herself over. She still wore her desert camouflage, which while not suited to her jungle environment, would at least help her to remain hidden. She had her body armor. That was good. She had her pair of Karambit knives and her M-4 rifle fitted with a thermal scope, beam rider targeting laser, flashlight and under slung M-203 grenade launcher. Lys checked the rifle. A full magazine and a frag grenade were loaded. On her waist was an ammo belt with five more magazines, and three each of frag, flash bang, and smoke grenades. She also had six incendiary grenades on a bandolier over her shoulder. On her back was her favorite weapon, a curved scimitar she forged herself many years ago. She also carried a small pack containing two field med kits, a week of trail rations, and a dozen loaded clips of ammunition for her rifle, three of which were armor piercing rounds, and a pair of small C4 charges. She was hot loaded for heavy combat, which made no sense to her,as she had less than half that gear with her when she was taken from her last mission. Also some of the items she had were unique, like her hand made sword.

It was night, but that mattered little to her. Lys was naturally nocturnal and had excellent night vision. She would have to move quickly, as she was exposed down on the Forrest floor. As she moved cautiously through the trees, she began to notice things that didn't belong. Some of the plants came from the Amazon, others from the Bengal jungle in Southeast Asia. Others still she didn't even recognize as Terran. "where am I?" She asked out loud as she passed a grove of mushrooms that towered over her head. The odd soldier wasn't human, but she had lived on Earth as long as she could remember. Though she didn't know her parents, Lys did remember her kind or at least something that resembled her in Japanese folklore. Since then Lys had always identified herself as a kitsune. As different as she was from other Terrans, Lys couldn't believe she would find herself in a place so different from anywhere on earth. Questions filled her mind, but she chased them away and focused on her situation. Without a mission, her mission defaulted to survival. And that's exactly what she would do. She needed to find high ground. She needed to find shelter. She needed to find answers. As she crouched and scanned the Forrest again she saw that the Forrest floor broke into hills in the distance, and she set off in that direction. Maybe if she could get out of the thick Forrest, she could see the sky. That would allow her to find north, and survey her surroundings. So Lys slung her rifle, and set out for the hill line.


End file.
